Middle Fork (Tomahawk)

Mike and I getting ready for some great fishing

Had a great time with Mike and Ben on the middle fork of the South Platte at Tomahawk this weekend. I think this is some of the prettiest water around. Every bend offers a nice run and a few trout. The water was higher than I've ever seen it and the fishing in the morning was great.

It took a few runs to get things figured out. I had a dry and a nymph rod setup and I started out tossing hoppers. I wasn't getting many looks so I switched over to nymphs pretty quickly. Within a few casts it was apparent that the water much faster and deeper than it ever has been when I've fished it before. I really had to use a surprising amount of weight to get my bugs on the bottom. Once I figured that out it was on.

San Juans worked as great attractors. Size 20 Two Bit Hookers and 20 brown Barr Micro Emergers were very effective. I noticed a small golden stone crawling up my leg an immediately tied on a size 16 Flashback Hares Ear which just killed it for about an hour. Caddis were hatching in the PM and Mike did very well on a size 16 Elk Hair Caddis. I had sporadic action on a size 16 Graphic Caddis but things died down pretty good in the PM. I remember the same thing happend to Mike and I last year we fished here. Top rig - tan Sparkle San Juan Worm trailed by a size 16 Flashback Hares Ear. You could leave this on all morning and have a blast. I tie a little Ostrich Ice Dub in the thorax of my Hares Ear and the naturals I saw had the same coloring.

Most fish here are tiny. There is a nice mixing of larger trout though. We landed 4 or 5 over 10 inches and one brown was probably around 14. It's nice when one of these fish hit because you are expecting a little guy to come flying out of the water. Instead your line starts running. Great feeling.

Wet wading was great but I recommend wearing some light wading pants if you are going to wet wade because you do wind up doing some bush whacking along the river. This river can get pretty slick too and I did the dance several times which lead up to full submersion on one occasion.